Judge Bans Latest Kansas Abortion Restriction

(AP)-A Kansas judge has blocked the state’s first-in-the-nation ban on an abortion procedure opponents refer to as “dismemberment abortion.”

The decision Thursday from Shawnee County District Court Judge Larry Hendricks came in a lawsuit filed from the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights. The center represents two Kansas abortion providers and argued the law would force women to undergo riskier procedures or forgo abortions.

The judge’s order will stay in effect while he considers the lawsuit further. The new law was supposed to take effect July 1.

It bans a second-trimester procedure that anti-abortion activists call “dismemberment abortion” and was model legislation from the National Right to Life Committee. Kansas was the first state to enact it.

The state’s lawyers argued that there are safe alternative abortion methods.